HYDERABAD: Constitutional obligations were met with and legislative practices were followed by the two warring personalities – Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao — on the first day of the Assembly Budget Session on Friday.
The Chief Minister facilitated the Governor’s address to the joint session of the Council and the Assembly after a year or so and Dr Soundararajan stuck to the custom of reading out the text furnished by the government that was loaded with praise of Chandrashekar Rao and the BRS government. Friday’s development was a follow-up to the truce worked out between the two camps a few days ago during the course of hearings at the Telangana High Court.
The move kicked up a huge political controversy with the Congress accusing the BRS and the BJP of reaching an understanding to stop it from coming to power in the next Assembly elections. Giving credence to the criticism, Chandrashekar Rao spared the Governor the embarrassment of reflecting the ruling party’s criticism of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Central government.
Apparently reciprocating the gesture, the Governor heaped praise on Chandrashekar Rao and the state government. Contrary to expectations of even the BJP leaders. she avoided a repeat of Tamil Nadu where Governor R.N. Ravi had recently skipped several parts of the address.
Sources close to the ruling party told Deccan Chronicle that a conscious decision was taken to not incorporate any lines that even indirectly referred to what the BRS harps, on the injustice meted out to Telangana in Central allocations.
“Puli gandripulu vintamanukunte, pilli kootalu vachai (we expected to hear the roar of a lion, instead we ended up listening to a cat meowing),” was the instant reaction of senior Congress leader T. Jagga Reddy. Another Congress leader, A. Mahesh Reddy, said the episode of the Governor’s address was directed by the BJP Central leadership with which Chandrashekar Rao struck a deal. “Today the understanding between the two parties came out openly,” he alleged.
Even BJP legislators were in a tight spot but tried to work out a via media solution. While stating that Governor had to read out the address approved by the Cabinet, as per the legislative custom, BJP MLA M. Raghunandan Rao and former MP Konda Vishweshwar Reddy, in separate media interactions, accused Chandrashekar Rao of forcing her to utter lies about the BRS government.
